The U.S. has issued international arrest warrants for five ex-VW managers in connection to the automaker’s emissions-cheating scandal.
According to Sueddeutsche Zeitung, the five former executives and developers, as well as two executives under former CEO Martin Winterkorn, were indicted by U.S. authorities for conspiracy to commit fraud and for violation of the U.S. environmental rules.
Thus far, a spokesman at VW’s Wolfsburg headquarters declined to comment on the matter, as reported by Autonews.
This development comes after former VW manager Oliver Schmidt was arrested back in February in Miami, just as he was about to board a flight to Germany. Schmidt is currently awaiting trial in the United States after being denied bail.
The official reason behind Schmidt’s arrest was for “offering reasons for the discrepancy [in harmful emissions] other than the fact that VW was intentionally cheating on U.S. emissions tests, in order to allow VW to continue to sell diesel vehicles in the United States.”
It’s also unlikely that German authorities would extradite the five accused to the U.S. to face charges, since German citizens can only be extradited to other European Union countries or to an international court.
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